


Bridging the Gap

by tucuxi



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tucuxi/pseuds/tucuxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five months in, Kakashi thinks moving in with Iruka is a <i>terrible</i> idea.  Iruka disagrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridging the Gap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [txilar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/txilar/gifts).



Kakashi and Iruka had been -- well, they'd been _something_ \-- for a little under five months when one of Kakashi's missions went noticeably awry. It wasn't anything really serious: just a tracker whose determined pursuit made Kakashi lie low for a few days on the way home in the hopes of throwing her off. So Kakashi returned later than planned. He was also a little scratched up when he got home, and pretty nearly tapped out, but only nearly.

Iruka had still been worried, though. Kakashi checked himself out of the hospital early that evening and went home: Iruka appeared at his door an hour or so later, obviously shaken.

"You weren't at the hospital!" Kakashi shook his head, and tried not to let Iruka see how hard he was hanging onto the door to stay upright. Iruka looked upset, though, so Kakashi stepped back to let him in.

"No," he agreed, "I'm not." Trying to shake his head had been a mistake, Kakashi decided. And then Iruka's arm was around his shoulders.

"Come on," Iruka said, and his voice was softer, now, "come on, let's get you sitting down." Kakashi might have protested: he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself (he'd been doing it for long enough, hadn't he?) but it did sound like a good idea. Iruka got him settled, and then made tea, and Kakashi tried not to be unnerved by how easily Iruka was finding things in his kitchen despite seldom having been here before. He closed his eye, just for a moment.

"Welcome back," Iruka said, and Kakashi blinked. Had he really fallen asleep? "Here," Iruka poured a cup of tea. "This might help."

Kakashi was no longer sitting up, but propped up on a pillow, and there was a blanket over him. He blinked, surprised.

"Kakashi," Iruka said, holding the teacup out. Kakashi sat up and took the cup of tea, which looked all right, and took a small sip. It tasted fine, too, just a little bit over-steeped, probably because he'd been asleep.

"What time is it?" Kakashi asked, disoriented. There wasn't much light coming in the windows, but the curtains were drawn, and it had been a rainy day to begin with.

"About ten," Iruka answered, poking absentmindedly at the teapot. Kakashi's hand froze on its way to his mouth. He'd been asleep for nearly three hours.

"And you just sat there?" Kakashi asked. He was aware there was a slightly aggressive edge to his voice but wasn't able to mute it in time. Iruka shrugged; he looked a little uncomfortable.

"I did some work," he said, gesturing at a couple of notebooks in front of him, and then, "are you sure you don't need to be in the hospital?" Kakashi just looked at him, and Iruka flushed a little bit.

"Hey," he protested, sounding a little aggrieved, "I'm just asking." Kakashi sighed, and bent over to put down the empty teacup. Iruka refilled it.

"Thank you," Kakashi said, automatically. "I'm fine. Just tired."

"Okay," Iruka said. He took a sip of tea. After a moment, Iruka ventured, "I was worried." Kakashi glanced at him, startled by this unsought admission. "I know you can take care of yourself," Iruka continued, "but you were four days late. And--" He paused. "When you weren't at the hospital, I -- just for a moment --" he trailed off, looking down into his cup as if searching for answers in the pattern of tealeaves at its bottom.

Kakashi wasn't entirely sure how to respond. Guy worried about him, but Guy's brand of worry was loud and obnoxious and easy to deflect, and Kakashi knew how to deal with it. The last person brave enough to admit to being this quietly, sincerely worried for him had been -- Kakashi steered away from those thoughts. That had been a long time ago, in any event.

"I'm sorry," Iruka said, when the silence stretched too long. "I don't mean to intrude. I just wanted to see that you were okay for myself, and then you fell asleep, and, well." He shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable.

"It's okay," Kakashi heard himself say, and then, "I didn't mean to worry you."

Iruka smiled, then, and Kakashi reached out to brush a strand of hair out of his face.

"I'm okay," he said. "I'll probably just sleep late tomorrow. I'll see you after your shift?" It was a not-so-subtle hint. Iruka's expression didn't change, but something about him seemed to droop a little bit.

"All right," he said. His voice was calm and nearly expressionless. "But if I don't see you, I'm coming over to make sure you're okay." Kakashi nodded, and watched as Iruka packed up his things. Kakashi pushed off the blanket and padded over to the door to let Iruka out and re-set the wards. He still felt a little light-headed, but that wasn't exactly uncommon after an S-class solo mission. In some ways, he was almost surprised he wasn't in worse shape, but telling Iruka that hadn't seemed like a good idea.

Kakashi picked up and washed the teapot and cups slowly and carefully, checking the cabinets as he put them back to see if everything was where it belonged. It was. He shook his head: just because Iruka hadn't been in his apartment very often, that didn't mean he was going to pry.

Kakashi grabbed the blanket from the futon and walked into his bedroom, where the bed was unmade, its cover folded neatly. If Iruka had come in here to get the blanket, he had to have seen the photographs. Kakashi swallowed, re-made the bed, and climbed in.

In his dreams, Iruka asked question after question about Kakashi's team pictures, and Kakashi tossed and turned for some time before dropping into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

Kakashi could feel the hair at the back of his neck prickling as he sat with his back to Iruka's door, trying not to look like he desperately wanted to be anywhere but here. It was Iruka's birthday: showing up was the least he could do.

"Hey," Iruka asked quietly, putting one hand over his. "Everything all right?" Kakashi resisted the urge to pull his hand away to keep both hands free, and nodded.

"Sorry," he said, and focused on relaxing visibly, making his shoulders drop a fraction. "Long day."

It hadn't been, really, but Iruka smiled and turned back to Daikoku, whom Kakashi hadn't met before tonight's party. One of Iruka's co-workers at the Academy, he was a broad, smiling man with a firm handshake, and Kakashi had been trying all evening not to imagine what a disaster taking a mission with him would be.

At the opposite end of the table, Anko, Izumo and Kotetsu seemed to be arguing in a friendly way about mission distribution and the discretion of the desk staff. Apparently Anko felt she'd been getting too many break-in-the-rookie missions recently; Kotetsu valiantly (and slightly drunkenly) defended the ability of staff to assign whatever was most appropriate to a person's skill-set, rather than giving out missions based on what individual shinobi wanted. Kakashi didn't much care what they were talking about: he just tried not to resent them for having taken the most secure seats at the table, their backs to a solid wall rather than the door or windows. Beside him, Suzume, another Academy instructor, said something.

"Excuse me," Kakashi said, pulling himself back together, "what was that?" She peered at him, and poured them each another cup of sake; Kakashi made no move to touch his, but she downed hers right away.

"I was just saying," she said, and ignored it when Iruka made a face at her, "we should take advantage of this opportunity." He nodded once, uncertain what she was talking about.

"We really need to institute a minimum graduation age from the Academy. Pushing kids out so young is just asking for trouble. They're never really --" She seemed to realize who she was talking to and flushed. "Well," she said lamely, "it's really not necessary anymore, with the war over." Kakashi raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything, and kept his chakra under strict control, even, balanced and seemingly calm.

There was a slightly awkward silence at their corner of the table for a short time, and Anko stood to leave not too long after, having caught Kakashi's eye and seemingly understood his raised eyebrow and slightly cocked head.

Kakashi hung back as everyone else stood to leave, watching as the small group milled around Iruka, smiling and wishing him well.

"Happy birthday!" someone chirped, and a quick flash of motion startled Kakashi. He had a kunai in hand before he consciously realized what was happening, and everyone froze at the momentary pulse of killing intent. It had just been Izumo messing around, Kakashi realized, trying to pull Iruka's hitae-ate over his eyes and spin him in a circle. Izumo stepped back, hands up as if in surrender, grinning at Kakashi as if this were no big deal.

"Hey, okay," he said, "hands off, I get it!" His grin lightened the mood, and someone laughed. Then Anko elbowed Iruka in the side and whispered something that made him flush, and Kakashi watched as the others joined in, teasing him gently. As they stepped into the door, Iruka appeared to be soothing Suzume and one of his other co-workers, who had both appeared much more alarmed by Kakashi than any of the active-duty shinobi.

"Hey," Anko said, walking over to Kakashi with heavy, deliberate footfalls. "Yamato and I are training together tomorrow. You should join us." He blinked at her and she smiled. "Do you some good to shake things up a bit," she added, before giving him an obnoxiously bright grin and a thumbs-up. Then she was hustling out the door behind Izumo and Kotetsu. "Come on," he heard her say, looping an arm around Kotetsu's neck, "you're not really going home _already_ , are you?"

Iruka closed the door, and Kakashi felt himself relax just a little bit at that. Iruka's apartment was a place he knew, after all, when it wasn't full of noisy, gossiping shinobi.

"What was that about?" Iruka asked, though he didn't sound irritated, just curious.

"I was startled," Kakashi admitted. Then he looked at Iruka. "I think I proved Suzume-sensei's point," Kakashi said. Iruka made a low noise.

"I'm sorry," he said, and came over to put his hands on Kakashi's forearms, the touch reassuring in intent. Kakashi very consciously didn't tense up. "It didn't occur to me that she'd be on that particular crusade tonight. She's usually a little less militant about it -- I think she probably had too much to drink."

Kakashi shrugged. "I've heard it before," he said. "It's not a terrible idea." Iruka looked at him, apparently a little surprised. They hadn't really talked about this before, the fact that when Iruka had been a toddler, Kakashi had been a graduate from the Academy learning new and better ways to kill people.

"Anyway," Kakashi said, uncomfortable with the silence, "I think she made sure you wouldn't have to worry about any leftover sake."

Iruka laughed at that, and they cleaned up.

Later that night, once Iruka had fallen asleep and his own breathing had evened out, Kakashi disentangled himself gently from Iruka's arms and sat up.

"Kakashi," Iruka murmured. He wrapped an arm around Kakashi's waist. "Stay?" Kakashi paused in the act of swinging his feet over the side of the bed; Iruka's arm was warm against his skin. He didn't usually stay -- not for the whole night -- and Iruka didn't often ask. Iruka held on just hard enough to be a request, not an attempt to hold Kakashi there by force.

"Please?" Iruka said, his voice blurry with sleep, and Kakashi turned to look at him. Iruka's eyes were drowsy, and his hair was a mess. "It's raining," Iruka added softly, and pushed himself up on his other elbow. Kakashi nodded. When he tucked his feet back under the sheets, Iruka squeaked.

"Cold!" he protested, but he just dropped onto his back and encouraged the Kakashi to join him, tugging gently. Kakashi put his head on Iruka's shoulder and draped his left arm across Iruka's chest, letting Iruka pull the sheets up over their shoulders and inching just a little bit closer. "That's better," Iruka said, and wrapped an arm around Kakashi's back. Within moments, he was asleep again.

Kakashi lay there for a long time with his eyes closed, counting Iruka's steady heartbeats, before he dropped off, dozing lightly but never really falling all the way asleep.

In the morning, Kakashi felt Iruka stir as he began to wake up, and dropped a kiss on the side of his mouth. Iruka ran fingers through Kakashi's hair. "Should do this every morning," Iruka said, and seemed not to notice the way Kakashi froze at the suggestion.

"Mmm," Kakashi said, noncommittal and deeply grateful when Iruka didn't push.

He'd relaxed too soon, though. When Kakashi stirred a little later, Iruka sat up to face him.

"I meant it," he said, pushing a piece of hair out of Kakashi's face and looking at him closely. "I'd like to see you in the mornings more often, Kakashi." He leaned in to drop a kiss on Kakashi's mouth, and missed his target when Kakashi pulled back slightly. Iruka leaned away, a puzzled look on his face.

Kakashi shook his head, but Iruka plunged on.

"I've been thinking." He said. "You know, you could spend more time here, if you wanted to, right?" Iruka sounded hesitant and hopeful at the same time. "You could even move in?" He opened his mouth and Kakashi cut him off with a sharp gesture and a shake of his head.

"I don't think -- that's not a good idea." Iruka's face fell, and Kakashi could read the hurt and disappointment so clearly that he was almost tempted to take back what he'd just said.

"Why --"

Kakashi shook his head, and climbed out of bed, aware that Iruka was sitting stock-still where Kakashi had left him. He knew he should say something, should explain or justify himself, but he'd never found explaining this kind of thing easy, and nothing came to him now, no explanation or reason that would make Iruka feel any better. He settled for turning around once he was dressed, and kissing Iruka gently.

"It -- I'll see you later?" he asked, and Iruka nodded, his eyes searching Kakashi's masked face as if to find something -- some answer -- there. Whatever it was, he didn't seem to find it, and he still looked faintly confused when Kakashi left.

 

* * *

 

When Kakashi came back tired from his next mission, he went over to Iruka's after just a brief stop at the hospital; Kakashi told himself the smile on Iruka's face when he saw Kakashi at the door was worth the slight discomfort of not being in his own home. Iruka's bed was warm and comfortable, and Kakashi let himself be persuaded to stay. He dropped off to sleep faster than expected, fatigue pulling him under almost as soon as his eyes closed.

Maybe it was the mission, maybe it was the thunderstorm: Kakashi hadn't slept easily in storms for more years than he cared to count. Whatever it was, he woke up reaching for one of the blades hidden under his mattress; blades that were thankfully not present in Iruka's room. Iruka woke up as Kakashi snatched his hand away from the edge of the bed.

"Kakashi?" Iruka asked. Kakashi had no idea what to say. He settled for shrugging.

"The storm woke me." Maybe it was even true, but Kakashi wasn't at all certain. Iruka looked a bit skeptical, but he just _hmm'd_ and slipped back into sleep with an ease Kakashi could only envy, and right now, fear a little bit. The list of people around whom Kakashi could sleep easily had never been long; even now, it seemed Iruka wasn't on it. He lay awake for most of the rest of the night, only allowing himself to doze lightly lest something happen again. When Iruka woke, Kakashi feigned sleep to avoid talking. Iruka kissed his cheek as he got out of bed.

"Stay here if you like," Iruka said. His voice was all un-earned sympathy, and Kakashi felt almost guilty for his feigned fatigue. "I'll leave something for lunch." Kakashi heard him banging around in the kitchen for a little while, and then Iruka came in and kissed him on the forehead. "I'm off," he said, and Kakashi got up to see him go.

The door closed, leaving Kakashi alone in Iruka's apartment. There was a note on the kitchen table, Kakashi saw, and he guessed there would be a plate in the fridge. Kakashi looked around the kitchen almost gingerly, as if he expected something to jump out at him. Nothing happened: it was a perfectly normal apartment-block kitchen, nothing less, nothing more.

Kakashi got dressed. Then, feeling mildly guilty (but not enough to stop him), he rifled through Iruka's bedroom closet and drawers, uncertain what he was looking for. Iruka had more civilian clothes than Kakashi did, but not by much. The biggest difference was that he didn't appear to have a second flak jacket, nor to have a mission pack pre-packed, both things that lived in Kakashi's closet at all times.

There were more pictures around Iruka's apartment than Kakashi's -- his family, his genin team, his students, even of himself. So it was a surprise when Kakashi came across a small stack of photographs hidden at the back of a drawer, wrapped in white tissue paper with almost ritual care. When Kakashi unwrapped them, they were some of them crisped at the edges, with lines showing where their frames had been. Iruka's parents smiled out at him through the crinkling paper, looking impossibly young. They had to have been younger than Iruka was now when they married, Kakashi thought, and a moment later he saw that he had been right, when he came across several wedding photographs.

Each photograph was layered with a piece of white tissue, keeping the crumbling bits carefully apart, so Kakashi was surprised when he lifted a piece of paper and found a stack of more modern photographs. This stack was intact, each photograph apparently untouched by fires of the kyuubi attack, except for their subjects. Kakashi flipped through a dozen photographs of a burned-out husk of a house, of possessions destroyed almost entirely by fire, too badly damaged to be salvaged. He stopped part-way through, set the photographs back in their stack, in the exact same order, and replaced the wrapped package in the back of the drawer, carefully draping an unmatched sock over it.

Iruka didn't have many old things, Kakashi had noticed: his bed, a couple of mismatched chests of drawers. He'd never really wondered why -- he'd assumed that on a teacher's salary, Iruka had purchased items here and there, never really matching them quite right. This reason had never occurred to him; it ought to have. Kakashi thought of his father's house, almost untouched, and how infrequently he thought about the weight of history inherent in the heavy furniture, the carefully dusted objects of his childhood.

He closed the drawer carefully and went out into the living room, with which he was more familiar. Iruka's bookcases were full to the point of disarray, but Kakashi knew that there was a copy of Icha Icha, and a couple of similar titles, hiding behind the stack of grading books on the lower left. The idea of poking around was entirely without appeal now, even if Kakashi still wasn't certain whether the cooking knives were the only weapons in the kitchen. He looked at the photographs out on various surfaces and wondered how Iruka had chosen which ones to display.

Kakashi glanced around one more time. It would probably hurt Iruka's feelings if he left before lunch, Kakashi thought. He still did, carefully not imagining the look on Iruka's face when he came home to an empty apartment. He'd left a message at the bottom of Iruka's note, at least. When he got home, Kakashi checked the location of each of the blades smuggled away in various parts of his apartment, moving several that had been in the same places for too long. Then he went to sleep. He didn't dream, or if he did, he didn't remember it when he woke up.

The next morning, Kakashi wandered past the training fields and just happened to run into Guy and his team as they were practicing combining tree-walking and basic taijutsu.

Kakashi crouched on a thin branch, book open in one hand. When Tenten bolted up the trunk of the tree he was in, running away from Neji, Kakashi wiggled his fingers at her. "Hey."

She squawked in surprise and let fly a surprising number of shuriken and several small, very sharp knives. Kakashi caught some, dodged those that would hit the tree trunk and therefore be easy to retrieve, and made a mental note to keep up to date with what Guy was teaching them. That was an impressive summoning spread for a kid.

"Kakashi!" Guy looked up at him, hands on his hips, and then gave him a thumbs-up and a grin. "You could provide most excellent aid in their training!"

Kakashi made noises of protest, but allowed Guy to challenge him to also startle Lee and Neji within the next four minutes. Lee was surprisingly observant for someone with so little chakra-sensing ability, but was obviously not accustomed to looking up for attackers: a common flaw outside of Konoha, and one that Minato-sensei had beaten out of his students almost immediately. _What are all these trees here for_ , he asked, _if you're not going to use them to your advantage?_ It had been the first in a series of lessons on terrain, and Kakashi was pleased to pass it along, albeit in slightly different form.

Neji posed more of a challenge: as soon as he heard Tenten squawk he had activated the Byakugan, and he was apparently capable of keeping it up for longer periods than he had been during the chuunin exam. He seemed aware of his blind spot -- a good sign, and something many Hyuuga didn't realize until they were much older -- but neglected to look _down_. Kakashi got him with the headhunter jutsu, and left him buried up to the eyeballs until Neji sighed and released the Byakugan.

Guy dismissed the three of them soon after, and he and Kakashi walked back into town without speaking. If Guy noticed that the path they took wound deliberately away from the parts of town Iruka was most likely to be in at this time of night, he didn't say anything, though Kakashi had a feeling he was probably curious.

 

* * *

 

All in all, the next time Kakashi saw Iruka was handing in a mission report a little under a week later. Iruka's face brightened when he saw Kakashi walk into the room, though confusion chased happiness across his features.

Kakashi tried not to feel guilty about that. He hadn't been avoiding Iruka, exactly. He'd just been going about his usual mission routine. His usual, pre-Iruka routine. He handed in his mission report silently, and felt Iruka's fingers linger on his for just an instant longer than usual.

"Welcome back," Iruka said, scanning the report for anything out of the ordinary, seeming (as always) unfazed by Kakashi's handwriting. "You're all okay?"

"Yeah," Kakashi replied. "We'll all be fine." Iruka looked at him carefully, then, as if cataloging Kakashi's condition, and finally nodded. He put the scroll down on the desk and checked something off the list in front of him. Kakashi started to turn to go, and Iruka looked up sharply, the movement halting Kakashi in his tracks. They looked at each other for what felt like a very long time, and was probably no more than a second or two.

"I get off at eight," Iruka told him. Kakashi nodded.

"I'll see you then," he replied, and swung out of the room to check on his teammates at the hospital: Genma was fine, but Raido was going to need a good deal of healing for the mess their opponent had made of his left hand. Kakashi's fingers had ached in sympathy, just looking at him. Thankfully, the injury wasn't beyond Tsunade's skill: badly broken fingers could mean the end of a shinobi's career if they weren't healed properly.

Kakashi was a little bit surprised, however, when he got to the hospital and saw that the figure assisting Tsunade wasn't Shizune: it was Sakura. She didn't seem to notice him even when Genma nodded hello, instead focusing all of her attention on the patient's fingers and palm as Tsunade asked Raido to bend his thumb, his index finger, to test his range of motion. Kakashi leaned against the doorframe and watched for a little while, but left before Sakura had a chance to turn around and see him there. _She's doing well_ , he thought, _that's good._ He hadn't heard from Jiraiya in a month or so, but that usually meant good news, or at least an absence of bad.

When Iruka got off the mission desk that evening, Kakashi met him and they walked back to Iruka's apartment. When they got there, Kakashi opened the door and watched Iruka's face carefully. Iruka grinned, and stepped into his apartment, clearly surprised.

"You!" he said, and then turned around and kissed Kakashi through the mask. "You didn't have to."

A small houseplant sat on Iruka's living room table. It was a strain popular in shinobi families mostly for being virtually impossible to kill, but it was also very pretty when it flowered. There had been one in one of the pictures of Iruka's family Kakashi had found.

"I suppose that's for ignoring me for a week?" Iruka asked, his tone half-teasing. Kakashi shook his head and shrugged, a little uncomfortably.

"Hey," Iruka said, and stepped close. "You okay?" Kakashi nodded, and Iruka tugged his mask down, poking the tip of his nose as if he were a child. "All right," Iruka said. "We can talk about it after dinner." Kakashi had been hoping to avoid talking at all, but apparently he wasn't getting off the hook that easily.

Kakashi slipped the last dishes into the dishwasher just as Iruka finished making tea. They walked out into the living room, and Iruka sat down next to Kakashi, tucking his feet up underneath him. Kakashi couldn't help but calculate the fragments of seconds sitting that way would add to Iruka's reaction time, but he didn't say anything.

Instead, Kakashi poured tea for both of them, and handed Iruka a cup. It was a tea Kakashi had slipped into Iruka's cupboards as a surprise gift a month or so ago, a variety Iruka was fond of and never bought for himself because of its cost. Kakashi watched Iruka sip the tea and wondered how this would go.

"I was surprised when you were gone," Iruka offered, apparently having decided that either he could start this conversation, or they could sit here indefinitely while Kakashi attempted to ignore it.

"I couldn't sleep," Kakashi said. "I went home." It seemed to be sufficient explanation, and beside him, Iruka nodded.

"Was it the mission? Or the storm?" He sounded genuinely curious. Kakashi shook his head.

"Probably not." He had wondered how to say this kindly, but hadn't been able to figure out how to soften it without feeling like he was lying. "I just don't sleep well around other people."

Iruka appeared to be thinking this over for a minute.

"So you haven't been sleeping," he said, "on the nights when you've stayed over, I mean." Kakashi shook his head. He shouldn't be surprised by Iruka realizing that: just because he rarely took missions anymore, he wasn't an idiot.

"Not really," Kakashi admitted. "I usually catnap, like I do in the field."

Iruka made a face. “So that’s no good.” He was taking this better than Kakashi had expected. He decided to go for broke.

“That’s why I said my moving in wasn’t a good idea.”

"Kakashi," Iruka protested, "I just want to see you at the end of the day."

"You already do," Kakashi pointed out.

"I do _sometimes_ ," Iruka countered. "And sometimes you go home without going to the hospital and nearly go into a coma!" That, Kakashi thought, was unfair. It had only happened the once, and he'd had Guy agree to come check on him in the morning, just in case.

"You know that's not fair," Kakashi countered. Iruka made a frustrated sound.

"Kakashi," Iruka said, and his voice was gentle. "It's not like other people don't have to worry about coming back from missions on edge!"

"I'm _not other people_ ," Kakashi said. He hadn't lived with another person since he was eight years old: it wasn't something he would just get over, or get accustomed to.

Iruka paused, and when he spoke, his tone was different, softer, when he said: "Kakashi. I trust you. It'll be fine."

Kakashi sighed.

 

* * *

 

It was more than a week after that before Kakashi allowed Iruka to coax him into staying the night again. He wasn't heading out on a mission the next morning, he'd been home healing up for several days since his last trip out: it should have been fine.

When they went to bed, Iruka curled up on his side and pulled Kakashi's arm over his waist, snuggling into Kakashi's shoulder and sighing in contentment before dropping off. Kakashi just watched him, most of Iruka's face obscured by the fall of his hair. It wasn't too long until he thought he was accustomed to the weight of Iruka next to him, the warmth of his body. _This is Iruka_ , he told himself. _This is safe._ He dropped off gradually into real sleep, feeling Iruka's breath soft against his chest.

Some time later, a noise woke him. Kakashi sat bolt upright, having already slipped his arm out from under a weight, and dove for a weapon. Listening intently even as he moved, he flashed out a pulse of chakra, testing for presences. A mere instant later, he was poised in a crouch next to the only other figure in the room, kunai in hand.

Then he woke the rest of the way up. Kakashi froze in mid-strike, feeling the kunai grasped tight and sure in his hand, and looked down at Iruka, who was frozen in place. Kakashi took a deep, shuddering breath and went cold at the realization that sometime in the last few weeks he'd learned where Iruka hid his kunai in his bedroom.

Kakashi slipped the kunai back into the slot behind the frame of the bed and closed his eyes, rubbing his right hand back and forth against the bed sheets, trying to wipe away the feel of a kunai handle from his fingers, trying to get rid of the purely psychosomatic after-tingle of a _chidori_ burst. Iruka didn't move beside him, tense and silent.

After a few minutes of silence Iruka sat up.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Kakashi shook his head.

"I'm going to go," he said, and stood, slipping on his clothes from the neatly folded pile at hand.

"Hey. You don't have to." Iruka followed him out of bed and put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder, pulling Kakashi to face him. "It's okay."

Kakashi swallowed.

"You can stay," Iruka repeated. His grip tightened. "I trust you, Kakashi."

"You shouldn't."

"Kakashi," Iruka said, "you're being ridiculous. I can take care of myself."

Iruka pulled him a little closer and tucked his head against Kakashi's shoulder the way he always did. But this time it didn't make Kakashi feel wanted, or irrationally safer: it made him scared.

"You --" he whispered.

"It'll be okay," Iruka said, "it'll be fine. You're overreacting, Kakashi." _Overreacting_ , Kakashi thought with disbelief, remembering how Iruka had frozen in the face of danger, how slowly he had reacted.

A bare instant later, he was pinning Iruka to the wall, a kunai at Iruka's throat. Iruka stared at him, curiosity and a tinge of surprise in his eyes. Kakashi pressed harder, and Iruka's throat began to bleed slowly. Iruka twitched when a drop of it pooled warm in the dip between his collarbones: the blade was too sharp for him to have felt the cut.

"Kakashi," he said, "what do you think you're doing?" He didn't sound afraid, not really. Kakashi's stomach rolled over with dread.

"Demonstrating," Kakashi said. He looked into Iruka's eyes and saw annoyance there, and anger, and a little bit of confusion. _Damn it, Iruka_ , he thought, _this won't be enough_. He dropped the kunai and spread his hand over Iruka's neck, in position to crush his trachea. _Textbook-perfect execution_ , Kakashi thought. _He'll at least see that. He teaches this_.

"Demonstrating what?" The blood from the thin slice on Iruka's neck pooled in his collarbones and dripped down under the neck of his shirt. Kakashi felt sick when a drop of it crept onto his fingers. Iruka twitched under his hands, trying to move his arms enough to wipe away the blood at his throat. "Kakashi," Iruka said, "what is wrong with you? Let go of me!" His voice wavered a little bit.

Kakashi released him.

Even trying his best to get away, Iruka's response time was nothing to Kakashi's. Kakashi was able to pin Iruka's arms behind his back and spin him around before Iruka could even finish pushing away from the wall.

"Let go like that?" Kakashi murmured, pushing Iruka face-first into the wall. "I thought you said you can take care of yourself?" He felt Iruka's arms strain against his grip and knew that just a tiny twist would dislocate them both. Iruka started to struggle, and it was no trouble at all to hold him in place, no effort compared to the monsters and missing-nin Kakashi had fought.

"Get off me," Iruka bit out, jerking at his arms harder, trying to kick Kakashi's feet out from under him. Textbook moves, but they only worked in the textbook. In reality, when your opponent was stronger, you died.

"I could kill you," Kakashi whispered. "Right now. It would be _easy_." He pushed Iruka forward a little harder, leaving a smear of blood on the wall.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Iruka strained against Kakashi's grip, and Kakashi imagined his blade moving toward Iruka's neck just a few minutes ago, felt the effort it had taken to halt the strike when he realized what his half-sleeping body was about to do. It would be better, this way. It would be safer. He gritted his teeth.

"Did you really think you could stop me?" Kakashi continued, aiming for the deepest hurt. " _You_? You didn't even see Mizuki coming."

Iruka's breath froze. Kakashi could feel him trembling, little shivers from head to toe.

"Kakashi," he said, "get the hell out. Now."

Kakashi left, not letting himself look back at Iruka or at the crevices in the wall behind the bed where Iruka kept kunai that were just a bit duller than Kakashi's own.

 

* * *

 

Kakashi avoided the mission desk for a day. When he finally went in, driven by the knowledge that even if he didn't want to face Iruka, he still had a job to do, Iruka wasn't there. He picked up a routine A-rank, which was so boring he could probably have done it in his sleep. And that was really for the best, given how distracted he was by wondering what Iruka was doing.

When Kakashi came in to hand in his report, Iruka was at the desk. Kakashi handed him the scroll, and Iruka took it, flinching a little bit when his fingers brushed Kakashi's. His chakra was sharp and unfamiliar and he looked uncomfortable.

"Thank you," Iruka said; his tone was cold. "Here's your next mission." And he handed Kakashi a green-labeled scroll.

"Um," Kakashi said, "I don't think --"

"Oh, yes," Iruka said. "I'm afraid Ebisu-sensei is ill at the moment. I'm sure his team will be delighted to have you as a temporary replacement."

Kakashi blinked at him, and opened his mouth to object. The standard protocol for a jounin-sensei being ill was to farm the kids out to other teams, or to just assign them written work, not to pull another jounin off rotation.

"Konohamaru!" Iruka bellowed. An instant later Kakashi was surrounded by three eager-looking kids. They looked even smaller than Team Seven had, if that was possible.

"Oh, man!" Konohamaru gasped. "Naruto's gonna be _so pissed_!" He sounded delighted. "Oooh! Did he ever --" Konohamaru started making a series of seals, and Kakashi didn't need to use the Sharingan to know what jutsu he was about to cast. A poof of smoke later, there was a very attractive pair of naked girls veiled in convenient bands of mist where the boy had been. Kakashi just glanced at him, then pulled out a book. Behind the desk, Iruka was shading his eyes.

"Whenever you're ready," Kakashi said absently, turning a page. The girl -- Moegi, if he remembered correctly -- smacked Konohamaru in the back of the head, and pulled the other boy forward.

"We're ready now, Kakashi-sensei." Her voice was high, and her pigtails were ridiculous: he wondered how often she got stuck in foliage. _Well_ , he thought _, Sakura's hair wasn't much better._ The other boy -- Udon -- had glasses that were going to be a problem in the long run, and, now that he was back to normal, Kakashi could see that it was a miracle Konohamaru hadn't strangled himself on his scarf yet. He sighed, and they trailed out of the building after him like three very strange little ducklings.

"All right," Kakashi said. "Now, you're all familiar with the daimyo's wife's cat?" They all groaned. "Good!" Kakashi feigned cheerfulness. "I'm sure you can take care of it with minimal supervision, then. He leaned against the wall and turned another page. "I'll be here," he said. "If you come back before I finish the book I'll take you tree-walking." They looked at each other: apparently this kind of hands-off teaching didn't figure into Ebisu-sensei's lesson plan. "Go on," Kakashi said. "I'm sure the daimyo's wife is only getting more and more distraught as she waits for her poor cat to be found." They exchanged dark looks.

"You'd better do something way more awesome than tree-walking!" Konohamaru announced. "And we'll totally be back before you've finished the _chapter!_ " He dragged the other two away, Udon protesting that they had no idea how long the chapters were, and what if Kakashi-sensei was only a page away from the end of one?

Kakashi put down the book when they were out of sight, and spread his senses very carefully up to the mission room. Iruka felt upset, though as Kakashi waited, he seemed to calm down, with only the occasional spike of exasperation or anger in his chakra signature that Kakashi assumed came from poorly written mission reports or exasperating shinobi.

Konohamaru and his friends re-appeared surprisingly quickly, all things considered, Udon holding a squalling, thrashing bag away from his body. Kakashi raised an eyebrow: apparently they _had_ caught this animal before.

"All right," he said, "well done. Now, who wants to give the cat back personally?" They all looked at each other, and then Udon tossed the bag at Kakashi. Kakashi caught it reflexively before the bag could fall to the ground, and then all three of them backed a step away, looking a little alarmed. The cat meowed piteously, and he reached one hand in, thankful he was wearing gloves and long sleeves.

"You're writing the mission report," Kakashi told the three of them, and then he led them off to hand-deliver the cat to its owner. When they handed in the mission report, Iruka looked a little bit surprised at the scratches visible on Kakashi's fingers, but he didn't say anything about them.

"Thank you," he said, and his tone was still icily formal. "Come back in the morning for your next mission."

The next morning, it was an irrigation repair mission that took two days and involved knee-deep mud. Well, knee-deep mud for Kakashi. The kids were in it almost up to their waists. Kakashi actually pitched in on that one in the evening of the second day, taking pity on their attempts to stop a gushing leak and thoroughly sick of standing in the middle of a field being eaten by flies. Iruka took the proffered report without any visible change in expression, though his heart rate had kicked up when Kakashi entered the room.

On the fourth day, Kakashi got to direct the three of them as they cleaned up garbage and animal waste in the warehouse district, one of the worst D-ranks on the lists. And when he handed in that mission report, which Kakashi had written, sending the kids to go home and clean up because they smelled _terrible_ , Iruka just gave him a cold smile and another green-labeled scroll. His fingers didn't trail against Kakashi's, and there was none of the confidential understanding in his eyes that Kakashi had grown so accustomed to.

"Look," Kakashi tried.

"Next!" Iruka called, neatly interrupting and getting rid of him at once. _Well_ , Kakashi thought, as he walked out of the tower, thinking back on their argument, _this was the goal, wasn't it?_

Finally, after two weeks of a painfully impersonal Iruka and six D-rank missions, Ebisu-sensei was there when Kakashi arrived. He looked well enough, and a little nervous.

"Ah," he said, rubbing his hands together, "Kakashi-sensei. Thank you for your kindness toward my team. I'm sure they appreciated it." The glare he leveled at the three of them would have been impressive, except that it seemed entirely ineffective.

"Well," Kakashi said, rubbing the back of his head, "they worked hard." They had, all things considered.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Konohamaru interrupted, "don't you dare tell Naruto first! I want to see the look on his face when he finds out I got to have you as my sensei, too!" Kakashi just shook his head, and walked out. Probably he should get another mission today, but he figured that two weeks of D-ranks was enough to earn him a few hours off.

The next time he went in to the mission desk, Iruka wasn't there, and Nara Shikamaru, his chuunin vest still bright and unstained, handed him a red scroll.

"Your team's been assigned," Shikamaru said. He sounded bored. "Meet them at the gates in two hours." He looked at Kakashi. "Naruto said you're late to things," he added. "Might not be a good idea this time: Tsunade will probably be there to see you all off." Kakashi nodded. Shikamaru watched him closely, and Kakashi was suddenly certain the boy knew exactly what that meant about the mission's actual rank.

"Okay," he said. He was even on time, since there was no reason to antagonize anyone any further: six D-ranks was more than enough to get his attention.

 

* * *

 

Iruka finally chased him down in a tree just outside the town gates three weeks to the day after Kakashi had left so abruptly.

"Guy said you might be here." Iruka commented, craning his neck to see Kakashi. "Look, can we talk? I don't really know what's going on, but --" he sounded frustrated and confused.

This was confusing for Kakashi, too: only Guy routinely sought his company, especially these last couple of weeks. And even then it was usually for one of his ridiculous challenges.

"All right," Kakashi conceded. When Iruka didn't move, Kakashi patted the tree limb next to him.

"Here?" Iruka asked. Kakashi shrugged, unwilling to go back to his own apartment or to volunteer Iruka's. Iruka took a deep breath, the way he did when he was about to start yelling, and then let it out slowly. "All right." He walked up the trunk and they sat in silence for a few minutes.

"How about this," Iruka finally said. "If you don't stay the night anymore. Could you stay until I fall asleep, maybe? Sometimes?"

"What?" Kakashi's tone was sharp, but he turned a questioning eye on Iruka.

"I miss you," Iruka said, and then looked a little embarrassed.

"But you --" Kakashi wondered if he looked as confused as he felt. "You had me take Ebisu-sensei's genin team on _six_ D-ranks."

"Yeah," Iruka admitted, and he scratched at the back of his head. "I'm sorry about that. It was petty of me." He paused, and then admitted: "Tsunade was really pissed."

"You told her--" He wasn't entirely certain what her response would be, but he couldn't imagine that attacking another shinobi in his home would go over very well.

"No," Iruka said, cutting him off, "I wouldn't tell her why. I think that's part of why she was so angry."

"I thought you'd --" Kakashi paused. "I haven't seen you in weeks. I thought we were," he made a sharp, final gesture, "you know. Done."

Iruka looked like he thought Kakashi was a little bit crazy, and it wasn't the fond _oh, you crazy jounin_ look that Kakashi had become accustomed to when handing in reports, even before Iruka had asked him to dinner.

"No -- Kakashi, of course not. You're important to me."

Kakashi frowned.

"I was angry," Iruka admitted. "And a little bit -- a little frightened." Iruka sighed. "I don't see you in the field, you know." Kakashi frowned, uncertain where this was going. "I mean," Iruka said, "I read the reports. But that's not the same thing. I suppose I always --" he laughed a little, and Kakashi heard the self-deprecation clearly. "I thought - oh, I can handle myself. I can block him and get away, at least." He looked Kakashi square in the face. "I was wrong, wasn't I?" Kakashi nodded.

"I thought so," Iruka said. They sat in silence for a little while. Birds started chirping again as Kakashi's chakra settled.

"Guy talked to me," Iruka said, breaking Kakashi's train of thought. "A couple of days ago. He said you were pining for true love." Kakashi felt himself flush.

"He said I was _what_?"

"And a lot more than that, too," Iruka said, and his tone was familiar, almost teasing. Kakashi could imagine it all too well: Guy cornering Iruka and giving a speech accompanied by sparkles and broad enough gestures to attract the attention of anyone in the neighborhood. He just hoped Guy's team had been elsewhere at the time.

"But he wanted to help." Iruka sounded hesitant, but he took a breath and continued. "Do you remember when you came back from that mission almost tapped out, and asked Guy to check on you?" Kakashi nodded. Even if the mission itself hadn't had much to distinguish it from a hundred others, Iruka's reaction to finding out that Kakashi had passed out afterwards had been distinctly memorable.

"Well," Iruka said, looking at his hands. "I didn't understand, before, why you asked Guy to check that you were all right, instead of telling me." Kakashi watched him, wondering where this was going. "But when -- when we talked, Guy said that you've attacked him in the past, when things were really bad. He thought that might be why you didn't tell me."

"I won't kill him." Kakashi said, frankly. "Not in one rush, at least, and that's usually all it is." Iruka looked hurt, but not the way he had before.

"Usually," Iruka said. "Kakashi--" the sympathy in his voice was almost overwhelming, and Kakashi ducked his head, uncomfortable.

"It happens," he said, shrugging. "It comes with the territory." It did. It always had.

“I --” Iruka turned to face him. “I know that.” He still looked almost painfully sincere. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Kakashi shrugged again. He’d never really had the luxury to worry about whether he liked it or not -- this was just how the world _was_. Iruka leaned toward him gingerly, and Kakashi held very still. When he didn’t move, Iruka rested his head on Kakashi’s shoulder, scooting a little closer and wrapping his arms around Kakashi’s back.

“Okay,” Iruka said. “Are we okay?” Kakashi nodded.

 

* * *

 

“Kakashi,” Iruka called, setting down his bag with the rattle of confiscated items that signaled the beginning of the summer term. “What’s going on?”

Kakashi turned around from his seat at Iruka’s kitchen table, which was strewn with plans and diagrams.

“I bought the apartment next door,” he explained. “The studio.” He gestured at an open doorway that had been a closet until that morning. “It’s right through there.” Iruka stared at him.

“You what?”

“I bought the apartment next door,” Kakashi repeated. “It’s pretty much the same size as mine.”

“Kakashi-sempai,” Tenzo’s voice sounded faintly aggrieved. “You said this was all cleared in advance.”

“It was,” Kakashi explained. “The superintendent approved all of the structural changes. We don’t want the building to fall down, after all.” Kakashi could imagine the way Tenzo was bristling at the implication that anything he built might have the temerity to fall down.

“Iruka-sensei, I’m sorry about all this.” Tenzo actually came out of the studio apartment, mask held over his face with one hand. Iruka stared. He looked at Kakashi, and then at Tenzo, and then back at Kakashi.

“You --” he said. “Kakashi -- what --” Iruka glanced at the door frame, and then walked very carefully and deliberately around Tenzo to look at it up close.

“This wasn’t cut,” he accused.

“Nope,” Kakashi agreed. “Better than that.” Iruka looked between the two of them, little pieces apparently clicking into place.

“Kakashi,” Iruka said, and his voice was low in a way that either meant very bad things, or that Iruka was trying desperately not to laugh, “tell me you didn’t just harass a very busy ANBU member -- who happens to be the only living person with the first Hokage’s wood jutsu -- into helping you _remodel my apartment_?”

“Hmm,” Kakashi said. “Well, I could always lie to you.” Tenzo put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking silently.

“Oh my god,” Iruka said. “You’re _insane_.” But he was definitely holding back laughter.

“Probably,” Kakashi agreed. “But now I can be crazy from closer, you see?” He was pretty sure there wasn’t any trace of uncertainty in his voice. “Come look,” he encouraged.

He was proud of the design, really: a simple re-use of the studio’s kitchen space allowed for a hallway and two doors between Kakashi’s room and the rest of the apartment, and the studio’s original door meant Kakashi could get in and out without passing Iruka, when it was necessary.

Iruka came back to the table and looked at the designs, resting one hand on Kakashi’s shoulder.

“All right,” he said, finally laughing, “yes, yes, I see.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://txilar.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://txilar.livejournal.com/)**txilar** for the Winter 2012 round of KakaIruFest on LJ.
> 
> Many thanks to [](http://empty_mirrors.livejournal.com/profile)[**empty_mirrors**](http://empty_mirrors.livejournal.com/) for a fantastic beta-and-talking-it-out job early on, and a generous and very helpful second pass, and to [](http://pentapus.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://pentapus.livejournal.com/)**pentapus** for taking a look at the last minute and helping me drag it kicking and screaming into shape! Any errors that remain are 100% mine.
> 
> Writing this was something of a struggle, because I knew exactly what I wanted to have _happen_ , but I didn't have the faintest idea at first as to _why_ it happened or how to get there. Usually I know what both characters are thinking and feeling, and why they react to X stimulus with Y response. This fic was sometimes like trying to write through pudding: I had no idea what Iruka was thinking for the longest time.
> 
> [](http://empty_mirrors.livejournal.com/profile)[ **empty_mirrors**](http://empty_mirrors.livejournal.com/) really helped me figure out the overall shape of it by brainstorming, which was great. And [](http://pentapus.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://pentapus.livejournal.com/)**pentapus** was an absolutely fantastic beta on very short notice, when I was stumped again. She told me which things weren't working and needed to go (even if I liked them), which were working and should stay, helped me re-evaluate appropriate in-story responses to various actions and gave incredibly helpful suggestions. There are several scenes in this fic (the dinner, for one) that would never have existed without her help. I would bake them both cookies if I could.  
> 


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